Apple .Mac subscribers hit 100k

By
09.18.2002 :: 1:01PM EST

Apple announced yesterday that subscribers to its .Mac services have reached the 100,000 user mark. Since July, over 1,000 Mac users a day have been subscribing to the services, which include: 100 MB of disk space; Internet hosting for template-based as well as your own Web pages; IMAP, POP, and Web-based e-mail service; and access to a number of “i” applications. iTools members are getting a US$50 discount off the normal $99.95 a year service if they sign up before September 30, 2002.

USER COMMENTS 19 comment(s)

Yeah, but….(2:03pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002)….how many have quit since the service went from being free to costing money? I'd say 100,000 is a tiny fraction of what they had before. – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi

Yea..ok…I'd hate to be your business partner(8:39pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002)I think 100000 paying subscriptions are better than 2.2 million free ones that cost a lot to maintain. – by Mac-AttackDog

re: Mac-attackDog(8:51pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002)Yip! Yip!

Well, Steve is the one who made it free in the first place. If I signed up a couple of million people for a costly service as an added perk to going with a new OS, my business partners would think I was an idiot, or at least making promises on borrowed time.

Having less than 5% of the subscribers remain to pay for it shows the bait and switch is sinking. – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi

OMG(9:47pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002)

Would you call Yahoo's former free now paid service a 'Bait and switch' or MSN's. They may provide you with A free email account but also have so many restrictions and advertisements that its not worth the free service and not to mention MS spies and pilfers your privet information. Do they provide you with Antivirus software, back up service, 100mb of diskspace with hompage, multiple email accounts and much much more……WTF? NO you say.. I wonder why. Find me one hosting company that provides all of this and exceed Apples level of first class touch and customer service… and don't forget to include the price tag …I don' t want to pay more than what Apple is charging me. Its the collective services that I'm paying for, lets see how many others will do this for you at the same price.

and one last thing… I love you man :D.I hope life treats you well.

bye – by Mac-AttackDog

100k(6:29am EST Thu Sep 19 2002)well, i thought i remembered Apple users saying how great it was that .Mac came, and now that they are willing to pay it. Well, as this shows, guess not. – by Warplex

Yawn,(11:37am EST Thu Sep 19 2002)When they hit a million, then that is news. – by – –

re:- –(2:40pm EST Thu Sep 19 2002)At 1,000 per day, 900,000 people will be signed up, giving one million, in 900 days, or 2.4 years. Yeouch! – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi

HELLO(1:22am EST Fri Sep 20 2002)

by by – by OWND

re: dubyahwhatever(8:06am EST Fri Sep 20 2002)*snicker* No, me and Warplex are two different people. However, if you want to think I'm pulling a “Gropo” then be my guest. I'm sure you post under this “dubyah” handle all the time……

Open a 2.4 meg .pdf in Acrobat (from application boot) and see if it indeed takes 12+ seconds to open the sucker!

My 466 G4: 4 seconds.

a 700 Mhz G4 should perform considerably better…

I presume they are running 10.1.x I will now re-boot in to the 10.1.3 partition on this machine and see how a 466 fares in comparison to a 700 Mhz G4.

Yup, just as I had suspected… According to eTesting Labs, my 466 takes a mere 10 seconds longer to boot, and opens a 2.4 Meg .pdf in *half* the amount of time a 700 Mhz system. (10.2 has application pre-binding accounting for the 2 seconds shaved off under that OS)

Related anecdotes: *booting back in to 10.2 took 54 seconds.*opening the same .pdf in Preview.app under 10.2 takes 2 seconds.

Are you trying to tell us that Apple is capable of publishing specious benchmarks but Gateway is not? Come on! Where's that new-age ziwiwiwiwiwi anti-bias? Seems it's been tied up and locked in the closet for the time being…– by MacJedi

oh and my favorite part:(9:56am EST Fri Sep 20 2002)“eTESTING LABS INC. HAS MADE REASONABLE EFFORTS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY AND VALIDITY OF ITS TESTING, HOWEVER, eTESTING LABS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO THE TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS, THEIR ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR QUALITY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.”– by MacJedi

re: MacJedi(10:10am EST Fri Sep 20 2002)Relax, I was trying to see if the Dubya guy would get worked up over it–do you really think I'd be buying a Gateway?

I was kind of wondering on that test why they looked at boot times, java and pdf loading (?), 3d video and scant little else. Seemed like they left out quite a bit of material in my humble ipinion.

Anyhoo, I was able to get 9.2 and after partition the hard drive like you suggested and now I'm getting my OS 9 apps and OSX working together pretty happily, although I still can't get SMB to work with my Windows machine, even thought that one seems a no-brainer. Now if I could just afford the Radeon 8500….. – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi

Mac-AttackDog(5:24am EST Sat Sep 21 2002)You can get hosting alot cheaper than this. I'm not even going to count the cute little apps that come with the service, becuase they are pointless.

Etcetera(6:29pm EST Sun Sep 22 2002)Hey where do you get it this cheap? – by Inapillow

MacJedi(5:47pm EST Mon Sep 23 2002) If you go there tell them etcetera sent you. They use real SUN servers to.

You get so much more for the first $90 though.

Schedule syncing? Interesting, there is opensource software to sync my PDA with a database on my website, and then with my computer.

Personal Data Backup? I could write a batch file that does the same thing. As far as I can tell the data isn't even backed up on the server side. (it is backed up weekly on the server side in my example, as often as you want if you feel like copying the files locally)

WebDAV, not sure what I'd use that for. I'll have to read exactly what it does, and why I would want it.

Virus protection? Huh? If it's integrated with the mail, that's cool. Of course I didn't think Macs got viruses. Even Yahoo has built in virus protection.

Point is, what would you rather have, a personal website (with your own domain name if you wish) with unlimited email, and the ability to customize as much as you want (on top of that you can resell the 14 other domains? or a canned site, without a personal domain, limited email, maybe a little more convenience?

You don't have to pay $90, you could get a 2 domain deal for $35 – by Etcetera

Almost forgot(5:52pm EST Mon Sep 23 2002)Service is great also. You are dealing with a smaller company, with fewer customers that require help. I've always asked question via email, or IRC, and always get a quick response. – by Etcetera

Sorry I came late to this party, but your “canned site” assumption is incorrect. Yeah, users with no web experience can use .Mac's home page builder to create something basic… but all a more sophisticated user needs to do is whip up the HTML and drag the documents into the Sites folder in their iDisk.

The “WebDAV” term, by the way, refers to the “Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning” protocol, and allows Mac or Windows users to access iDisk as easily as they can access local folders. Much faster and easier to use than even the best graphical FTP clients, from what I've seen so far. For more info on WebDAV, visit:

That said, the resource you pointed to does sound like a good bargain, and I'm not steering anyone away from it. Dealing with a small provider often does have its advantages. I'm personally happy with .Mac, but I fully expect there to be competing services — and that's a GOOD thing, it should keep Apple from getting too greedy.

One last thing: outfits like BuyDomains.com have largely made hosts offering a domain name as part of their package redundant. Buy however many domains you like ($16 per year, less in bulk), and enjoy unlimited forwarding of web traffic and email. Anyone hitting my domain gets frame-forwarded straight to my .Mac hosted site, no fuss. – by